


Are You Okay?

by yikesola



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2018, But also, Established Relationship, M/M, Memory Lane, Spooky Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 23:39:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17907896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/pseuds/yikesola
Summary: A Spooky Week video is getting to Phil, but Dan asking “Are you okay?” has always had the immediate effect of making him feel far more okay than he could have expected.A fic about checking in and a few of the many times Dan has done so.





	Are You Okay?

Phil hears him asking over the low ambience sounds emitting from the quiz. “Are you okay?” Dan asks, barely above a whisper in a voice that’s almost a croak. He can feel Dan turned towards him when he asks it; Dan is asking _him_. The camera, their audience, the video— none of it matters. All that matters to Dan just then, Phil realises, is making sure he’s okay. 

“No!” Phil says, even though really he is okay. “I don’t know why it’s unnerving me so much.” 

There’s really no reason for it to. The quiz they’re playing for Spooky Week on the gaming channel, the Watson-Scott Personality Test, is meant to be scary. It’s meant to unnerve Phil— and knowing that should be enough to lessen the effect right? Knowing it’s corn syrup instead of blood in horror films helps make them good fun instead of emotionally scarring. But for some reason, this one’s hitting him. 

Dan checking in helps. Reminds Phil that if he’s sick of the quiz they’re free to stop at any time. To play one of the other games they’ve planned for the week and to find something to replace this one. That’s always an option if one of them really isn’t okay. But they’ve never had to before, and they’ve played much scarier things over the years than this quiz that is likely to buildup into a giant jump scare if its frequent shifts in sound and screen glitches is anything to go by. 

Still, Dan checking in makes Phil feel far more able to keep going. Dan checking in has always done that; Dan asking “Are you okay?” has always had the immediate effect of making him feel far more okay than he could have expected.

Like back in their very first year of learning everything they could about each other, when they’d sat in his parents’ house watching _Wall-E_ and crying, when Phil had been so overwhelmed over the course of the week they’d spent together by just how much he’d fallen in love with Dan. When he ached at the idea that Dan would be going back down south in a few days.

And Dan asked him, “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” Phil said with a shaky voice and smiled. He kissed him. He wanted to be okay for Dan; he didn’t want to spoil their limited time together by not being okay. 

Like back when Dan was fresh out of surgery and eating the McDonald’s that Phil had smuggled into the hospital. Dan, loopy on the highest legal dose of morphine available, recovering from a surgery he hadn’t been expecting and had been terribly scared of, looked at Phil and focused on his face as well as he could through the haze and asked, “Are you okay?” 

Phil couldn’t help but laugh at that question in those circumstances. He laughed, and Dan laughed with him, and of course he was terrified and tired and okay. 

Like back when a video that had never been made for public consumption found itself spread across the internet, first quietly, next loud as a siren. 

They did what they could to hush it, to cover its tracks, responding in ways neither of them quite understood from the other. Phil didn’t understand Dan’s vocal disgust. Dan didn’t understand Phil’s persistent silence. The tension lay thick between them. 

Despite it, Phil remembers Dan’s hand on his shoulder one morning— the dark circles under his eyes proof that he’d been sleeping less and less, his eyes too hollow, his bad days growing worse— and asking, “Are you okay?” Not _are we okay_ but _you_ , and Phil held that question in his mind for a while wanting to answer it truthfully. 

Because if Dan had asked _are we okay_ then Phil would have answered _yes_. Yes, of course they were. Even if the situation was miserable, even if they found themselves bombarded with questions they were not comfortable answering or addressing, even if both Phil’s nerves and Dan’s anger seemed uncontrollable, they were okay. Phil knew they were. Something had shattered, but it wasn’t _them_ that had. 

But was Phil okay? That’s what Dan had asked. And Phil wasn’t altogether sure. All he knew was that Dan asking made him feel far closer to okay than would have been otherwise. 

Like back when they’d finished their first proper radio show, and the impossible gamble they’d made by moving to London and trying to convince the BBC to give them a shot seemed to be paying off despite all their doubts. When Phil’s hands were still shaking, far more than normal, because of the dreaded responsibility of the switchboard and its many, many buttons. 

When Dan asked him, a light in his eyes that hadn’t often appeared lately and his dimples so pronounced, “Are you okay?” 

Phil nodded, his voice still a little worn, still likely to crack if he actually spoke because the relief of finishing the show with no disasters was still running through him. But he was, he was so damn okay. 

Like back when the trailer for _TABINOF_ dropped and the internet branded them sellouts. When something they’d put so much work into, something that had reminded them why they loved working together so much, something they were proud to present to the world, was met with condemnation. With scorn…

Dan asked, “Are you okay?” and Phil felt silly. 

Because he should have been the one asking Dan that; he knew how much more the internet’s comments have always bothered Dan. He knew how much the book meant to Dan as a physical, tactile, record of all they’ve ever accomplished. He knew that it being panned by the people he’d made it in gratitude for must sting more than Dan was willing to admit. 

So he nodded. Of course he was okay. 

Of course that was just people’s first volatile response. Of course they’d react differently when they saw the behind-the-scenes video to be released later, when they saw the stage show, when they saw how much Dan and Phil _cared_ about the project. Of course he was okay. 

Like back when he was sicker than he could ever remember being in his life before, far away from home and fevered and tired down into his bones. When they were on tour and there was simply no time for any sand in any gears, and Phil falling ill was one grain of sand so big it may as well have been a rock. 

He lay on the couch in the venue’s dressing room, cradling the blue and green pillow he’d brought all the way from England. He tried to sleep, tried to expend as little energy as possible in the hopes of saving all his energy for the two hours of the show. 

He’d argued against cancelling. Argued against the better judgment of everyone else, it seemed. 

But he’d won, they were performing and Phil was going to perform through the fever through the haze through the exhaustion. 

Dan looked at him as they stood behind the giant microwave door, just before their microphones went live, as the crowd on the other side of the stage began to build in energy. “Are you okay?” he asked, and Phil felt certain that if he really wasn’t, all he’d have to do is shake his head and even now they’d cancel the show. Even now, Dan would usher him back to his pillow and rub his temples as he slept fitfully at the thought of all their disappointed fans. 

He nodded. He was okay enough to get through the show. He was okay enough with Dan there beside him.

Like back when Dan was having one of the worst weeks of his life, suffering withdrawals from a botched prescription and shaking in a cold sweat on the bathroom floor. 

Phil held water out to him and pushed his sweaty curls off his face. He flushed the toilet that was filled with the stomach acid and bile Dan had thrown up, but no chunks of food since Dan had been too nauseous and unwell to eat in days. 

He grabbed a washcloth and soaked it in cool water, then wrung it out and handed it to Dan who wiped his face. “Toast?” he offered. “Soup? Something?” 

Dan’s voice shook when he said, “I don’t think I could, Phil.” 

Phil nodded and helped him stand and brought him to the lounge. This was so different from the bad days Dan used to have, Phil felt. This was so much more physical, so much less about what was in his head. “Please,” he said, “please can I get you something to eat?” 

Dan reached out for his hand. “Are you okay?” he asked, wiping away tears Phil would have fought harder against if he’d known he was going to shed them. 

“Am _I_ okay? You idiot!” Phil said, shaking his head and laughing and leaning forward to kiss Dan’s forehead. “I’d be a hell of a lot better if you ate.” 

“Get me the driest, blandest, nutritious thing you can find then,” Dan said. “If I’m gonna try to eat we’re gonna make it worth it.” 

Like back when the hairdresser swept away the cut strands off the floor that had once made up his emo fringe. When he’d finally committed to a decision that he built up in his mind for ages, a decision that amounted to nothing more than a haircut but which still felt like shedding an old skin and stepping out at himself for the first time in years. 

He looked in the mirror and ran his fingers through his newly styled quiff. 

It wasn’t all that different from how he’d been styling his hair lately at home and in a few videos, pushing the fringe off his forehead. But cutting the fringe off entirely still felt as radical as cutting off his pinkies: functionally not that effective, but still bloody nerve-wracking. 

Dan mimicked Phil’s motions, running his fingers through Phil’s shorter hair and swishing the quiff with an approving smile. “Are you okay?” 

Phil nodded. He was. He really was— this had been a long time coming. 

And like he’d asked countless, _countless_ times over the years. For big things and innocuous things, just ready to make sure that Phil’s okay. Ready to ask.

So even if the tension of Spooky Week is in the room, even if he’s strung tight ready for a jump scare from the game or from Dan (either or both of which is pretty much guaranteed) Phil’s more grateful than he has the time to process when Dan asks him “Are you okay?” He’s grateful for Dan’s reminder that Phil’s wellbeing is as much a priority, and always has been, as Dan’s wellbeing has been for Phil.

He can’t thank him like he’d want to just now. Not in the middle of the quiz, not in the middle of filming a gaming video. He can’t pluck those intellectual glasses off of Dan’s face right now and show him just how bloody okay he is with Dan in his life. He’ll have to save that for later. So he says he thinks the game’s unnerving him because he’s the one clicking, and Dan smiles and they banter their way through the rest of the video. 

And he is okay. Of course he’s okay— he and Dan have handled much more over the years than a silly spooky quiz after all.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading— come say hi on [tumblr](http://yikesola.tumblr.com/post/183026748894/are-you-okay) !


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